That's what lawmakers do. They want to be noticed -- in a positive way, of course -- so they pass what they hope will be bills popular with the public.

Sometimes they know those bills, after they become law, will be challenged and declared unconstitutional. Consider the state's harsh immigration law, HB 56: In 2011, lawmakers rushed the bill through, but since then, it has been picked apart by the federal courts and has cost the state no telling how much money and wasted effort.

But as cruel and unjust as the immigration law is, it has played well within certain mind-sets and groups in Alabama, regardless of its fatal flaws.

Similar mind-sets existed more than 80 years ago when nine African-American youths were wrongly convicted of raping two white women. There was no physical evidence against the Scottsboro Boys and they had poor legal representation, but when the white women covering up their own vagrancy condemned the youths, the all-white jury had no problem convicting them.

AL.com's Kim Chandler reported lawmakers this session will consider measures that will "officially exonerate" the Scottsboro Boys and declare they "were the victims of a gross injustice" and pave the way for a posthumous pardon from the state.

Chandler reported that Clarence Norris, the only Scottsboro Boy known to be alive at the time, obtained a pardon in 1976. State law, however, doesn't allow posthumous pardons by the state Pardons and Parole Board, so a bill would need to pass before the parole board could act.

Let's hope that bill passes so the official pardon of the youths for this terrible injustice can be issued. The resolution officially exonerating the nine youths only needs approval by the Legislature, but despite the declaration, it does not officially pardon the young people, whose lives were ruined by Jim Crow injustice.

No, none of the Scottsboro Boys can appreciate the pardon. The injustice to them cannot be righted. But the official record can be corrected, as it should be.

The Scottsboro case became internationally known and helped shine a bright light on racial injustice in Alabama and across the South. It was one of the many events that encouraged the civil rights movement and helped improve the justice system across the nation.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer
Prize-winner, is a community engagement specialist for al.com and The Birmingham News. Reach him at jkennedy@al.com.